From the RAND Corporation, July 22:
Key FindingsGenerative artificial intelligence (AI) presents opportunities for scaling and automation of tasks and activities related to influence activities conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). DoD needs to rapidly acquire and employ generative AI capabilities to stay ahead of adversaries; however, ad hoc, bottom-up efforts to operationalize this technology create inefficiencies in acquisition and development related to common services and platforms, human capital and cross-functional teams, and contracting.
The authors of this report conducted a review of current DoD generative AI acquisition efforts (focusing on influence activities). They interviewed 18 subject-matter experts from DoD, the private sector, and government research organizations to identify force requirements and commercially available AI capabilities. They also held an expert workshop with 24 participants from various DoD influence organizations to elicit their generative AI–relevant operational and tactical needs. Drawing on this analysis, the authors provide recommendations for cost-effective acquisition and development to take advantage of current and emerging capabilities.
Generative AI acquisition has meaningful differences from traditional hardware and software acquisition, so the services should identify appropriate organizations to manage AI acquisition. The Principal Information Operations Advisor (PIOA) should direct the Office of Information Operations Policy (OIOP) to coordinate with influence-tasked units; U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM); service influence, information, and information operations organizations; and operational units with influence responsibilities to foster collaboration.
Recommendations....
- To effectively compete and counter adversaries, DoD has a clear need to enable the influence community with generative AI, but there is a substantial lack of investment and unity of effort at present.
- Generative AI can improve analysis, operational planning, and assessment of influence activities. However, generative AI technology is a tool, not the answer, for addressing these rapidly evolving challenges.
- Effective generative AI acquisition will need a strategic, flexible approach and a sustainment process that covers the spectrum of enterprise to bespoke capabilities.
- No enterprise-wide plan or strategy currently addresses generative AI implications or opportunities as they relate to influence activities or operations in the information environment.
....MUCH MORE, including the download link for the paper (48 page PDF)
From the RAND Corporation, August 11, 2023:
Planning Ethical Influence Operations
A Framework for Defense Information Professionals
Key Findings....U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) efforts to plan and conduct influence operations in an ethical manner face several challenges, including concerns regarding the appropriateness of any influence activity, a lack of explicit consideration of ethics in the influence-planning process, and decoupling the ethics of force from the ethics of influence in military operations. Currently, DoD lacks a framework to explicitly consider the ethics of an influence activity outside legal review.
Ethics scholarship reveals that the principal ethical objection to influence is its threat to autonomy. Although influence is a threat to autonomy and is thus morally fraught, this scholarship points to several situations in which influence activities might be justified.
This report includes (1) clear ethical principles that should govern the planning and conduct of influence operations; (2) clear procedures for assessing ethics and the ethical risk associated with a proposed influence operation; and (3) guidelines for creating a justification statement for a proposed influence operation based on a preliminary ethical determination so that reviewers and approvers are presented with a consistent, coherent, and nonarbitrary ethical evaluation with which they can engage and agree or disagree.
The authors offer a principles-based framework for military practitioners to determine whether a proposed influence effort is ethically permissible and guidance for preparing a justification statement that allows approvers to follow the ethical logic behind a proposed influence effort.
And many more. We find RAND to usually be commonsensical with that last post being an exception that borders on farce.RAND: "Truth Decay Is Putting U.S. National Security at Risk"
This is pretty funny. The following essay expounds on the fact that there is a lack of trust in the country and somehow manages to avoid mentioning the lies of government agencies and the lies of the media for the last seven or eight years.It's akin to, and as crazy as, Barbara Fried saying the prosecutors have ruined her family's reputation. Sam and Gabe and herself and Mr. Bankman. Reputations ruined.
